Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...
Day 400: Planet of the Spiders, Episode Six
Dear diary,
How very fitting that the Fourth Doctor should be born on Day 400 of the diary. After all this time, I’ve finally made it through the Pertwee years - the era of Doctor Who that I was most dreading from this marathon. I’ll be writing up my thoughts on this early-70s period of the programme as a whole in another post, which you’ll find on the Doctor Who Online News Page today, too, but for now, let’s take a look at the Third Doctor’s final episode…
Well, it’s a blinder, isn’t it? There’s so much to love in here that I don’t really know where to start. Last night, I found myself reading the ‘daisies daisy’ speech from The Time Monster. I’ve known for years that the Doctor’s guru friend - spoken of in that story - turns up at the end of this one to help guide the Doctor through his regeneration, but it was purely by chance that I found myself looking at a transcript from that scene. I didn’t even really mention it at the time, and I can’t say I recall the speech making that much of an impact on me, but last night I suddenly realised just how beautiful it was. I even hunted down a clip (it’s on the BBC’s YouTube page) just to watch back and see if, like the Doctor with the daisy, I’d suddenly appreciate it all the more.
It’s certainly a good performance by Pertwee, but I can’t say it hit me particularly harder than it might have otherwise done. Really, it was the words that made an impact on me, and I’m really glad that I took the chance to read them again, because it ties so beautifully with the events in today’s episode. The Doctor’s slow realisation of who the old man sat before him really is gets played very well, and then their exchanges, as he guides the Doctor towards making the right choice simply by nudging him in the appropriate direction is lovely. It’s hard not to really enjoy his discovery that all of this is his own fault, and that he set his fate in stone some time ago, with his desire to visit Metebilis III and learn its secrets.
A big plot point of this exchange - and, indeed, this story as a whole - revolves around the fact that the Doctor actively went to the planet to steal one of these crystals, even if he didn’t think of it as theft at the time. I can’t recall wether, back in Season 10, the Doctor was actively desiring one of the stones (As far as I remember, he just really anted to see the blue planet), but it’s great that it’s been building up for so long. People complain these days about the way the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors have elements of their regenerations seeded in years in advance of them leaving the programme, but it’s been going on for a long old time.
Indeed, this is the first of what I think of as a modern regeneration. The first and, to some degree, second regenerations are played as something mysterious and scary, while this story has gone out of its way to reassure us that everything is ok, that the Doctor will be different, but still the same man. It even takes the trouble to show us another regeneration before the Doctor’s, just to ease us in to the process.
Thinking about it, this may be the most important regeneration of the entire classic series run. Hartnell’s regeneration was new, untested, and exciting, but it came at a point where the programme was still stretching the boundaries of what it could and couldn’t do. It was just the next unusual thing to take place in Doctor Who. By the time of Troughton’s departure, it was just something that the programme did. This time around, Pertwee has been the Doctor longer than any of his predecessors. While they all fall within a handful of episodes from each other, Pertwee has been the face of the programme for five whole years now, and that’s almost as long as the first two Doctors combined.
This is perhaps the first time that the young audience watching won’t be able to remember the last time the Doctor changed, and so it’s key that they ease you into it and reassure you. We even get a bit of a description from the Doctor, explaining to Sarah Jane how Time Lords are able to escape death. A similar tick is employed just before Christopher Eccleston regenerates - warning the viewers that a change is on the way, but not to worry about it, as it’s just something that happens.
We’re also seeing the first of the sad regenerations. Oh, sure, Troughton’s final episode isn’t all jolly romps, but the real ‘tug your heartstrings’ moments come earlier, when he’s saying goodbye to Jamie and Zoe. Here, the entire final scene is played as a very sad moment, and I have to admit that I even welled up a little! I’ve seen this scene plenty of times over the years. I think most fans have seen the regeneration scenes more times than any other bit of the programme - there are whole videos dedicated to them all on the web. While it’s always been quite downbeat, with Sarah’s brief ‘please, don’t die’ and the Doctor’s pained final words being cut off by his last breath, I’ve never really felt it before.
Coming at the end of this story, and specifically at the end of this episode, the scene packs a real punch. Pertwee’s been specifically made up to look a bit older and a bit more tired than he did when the story began, and you really feel his pain as he stumbles from the TARDIS and falls to the floor. I fully expected to be jumping with joy by the time I’d reached this stage. No more Jon Pertwee! Bliss! That was, of course, assuming that I’d even make it through his five seasons in the first place. Actually, I’ve rather enjoyed the experience.
And now, hopefully, I’m in for a real treat. Everyone raves about the Fourth Doctor, and as he fades into existence on the floor of the UNIT lab, I’m off on an exciting new adventure…
